Memory Glitch
by Teenangel
Summary: Heero awakens to find that he's 45 years old and has recently received a concussion, which has temporarily caused him to forget the last 30 years of his life. His daughter is there to help him remember.1xR,2xH,3xOC,4xD,5xS.*Sakura Time-line*
1. Chapter 1

Memory Glitch

Summary: Heero awakens to discover he is 45 years old and has recently received a concussion that temporarily causes him to forget the last 30 years. A woman who is not Relena is there to help him remember. 1xR, 2xH, 3xOC, 4xD, 5xS, ZxN

Disclaimer: I am a poor graduate student. I do not own Gundam Wing. Don't sue me.

* * *

Libra was breaking apart, and Wing Zero was over heating. It felt as if Zero was disintegrating around him . . . .

Heero first became aware of a sterilized scent and the texture of the crisp sheets, then the sound of the heart monitor, and lastly a weight against the right side of his sore body. He opened his eyes and looked down upon a cascade of golden hair; the owner's face hidden in crossed arms. He had not moved a millimeter (even his heart rate and brainwaves did not increase). Yet, the golden haired woman lifted her head up. Thin eyes blinked open, Prussian blue irises—

"You're not Relena," Heero noted.

The woman smiled as if the statement was both silly and common. "I'll tell Sally you're awake." The woman-who-was-not-Relena calmly exited the room.

Heero looked down at his hands—callused, wrinkled, worn. The hands of a man not quite old, hands he remembered Odin Lowe Sr. using to fire guns and setup explosives. These were not his hands. They were hands of a married man! Heero tried to pull off the gold band from his finger; it didn't budge.

The door abruptly opened, and a woman, who was and was not Sally, entered. Her hair was grayed, her skin wrinkled around the mouth, and her eyes tired and relieved. She wore a brown and green uniform of a faction he didn't recognize; "Preventer" read the sleeve patch.

"You suffered a severe concussion. You've been out for nearly three days," she said.

Heero touched the small bandage on his forehead over his right eye, "What is the date?"

"September 6th, AC 225."

His eyes widened a millimeter, focusing down on his hands—45 year old hands. He made fists; they felt strong. "The last thing I recall is destroying Libra."

"And you barely survived. The memory loss is temporary. Once the cerebral swelling goes down you should fully regain it," Sally said. She took the clip board from the end of the bed. "I'm going to allow you to be checked out of the hospital, but you'll need constant observation. The young woman who was watching over you will be your guardian. She can answer any questions you have."

"She's my daughter," he said as neither a question nor a statement. Sally paused and then nodded. "Hn," he responded. Heero turned his attention to the window. The horizon was an upward curve of buildings fading into the distance. As a soldier his first concern should have been his location, but the question 'Where is Relena?' floated to the foreground of his thoughts, proceeded by 'Is this real?'

The door opened and closed. Sally was gone; the woman-who-was-not-Relena had returned. She meditatively stood at the foot of the bed, hands clasped behind her back. The shape of her face was Relena's, the curve of her mouth, the petite form of her nose, but the severe blue eyes mirrored his own.

"How old are you?"

"23."

"Name?"

"Sakura," she said. She wore professional attire; a leather brief case sat beside the visitor chair to the right of Heero's hospital bed. She answered without the question. "I'm the Vice Foreign Minister."

"Of course," Heero looked down at his hands. "Where is Relena?"

"On Earth," Sakura replied. "Recent meteor showers have been delaying flights into space. She'll arrive as soon as possible." She walked to the bedside table and laid down a pair of tan slacks and a blue dress shirt, neatly folded. "I'll be in the hall. I've taken the rest of the week off. A limo is waiting downstairs to take us to our accommodations."

After the door clicked shut, he internally smirked at the curt and direct manner in which she spoke. If indeed he had a daughter that would definitely be her.

XXXXX

The limo ride was quiet and devoid of human movement as if they were both part of a calm sea. Sakura sat straight, eyes closed. Heero leaned against the limo door and watched their surroundings flash by.

"L4," he said, "I recognize this road."

"Then I don't have to tell you where we are going, _Hi-ro_," she said. The mispronunciation of his code name sent up a red flag, and he pointed a death glare at her. Sakura looked back at him as if he was a child attempting to frighten a lion. "If you're not careful, the wind might make your face stay that way."

"Hn."

The limo turned onto a road boarded on both sides with perfectly pruned, nine-foot tall bushes. As the road curved, the Winner Mansion slowly came into view. The polished bronze front gate opened, and the limo coasted into the circular driveway. The white stone mansion stood five stories tall with a third floor balcony above the main entrance. Twenty marble steps lead up to gilded double doors.

A servant came and took Sakura and Heero's bags from the trunk. Sakura followed a worn-in-path on the left side of the staircase; Heero walked up the underused, sharp-edged steps. Before a servant could reach for the handle, the doors burst open, and two platinum blond boys (eight and ten years old) ran up and attached themselves to Sakura's legs.

Their names rolled off Heero's tongue, "Dias, Abraham."

"Un'ca Odin!" they shouted.

Sakura held the boys back, "Not today. Uncle Odin needs rest. Find your father and tell him we're getting settled in." The two stood up straight, saluted, and then disappeared down a hallway to the left. Sakura and Heero stepped into the expansive foyer, which could fit two Gundams sitting down.

Heero paused in step and looked at Sakura, "Odin?"

"Does it surprise you that you'd reclaim your birth name?" Sakura smirked. "I used your code name earlier...I guess it was for naught. Which would you prefer right now?"

"Hee_r_o." Emphasis on the rolling 'r'.

She nodded and led him upstairs. His duffle bag waited on the blue satin comforter of a king size bed in one of the smaller guest rooms. Heero entered, but Sakura stayed in the doorway.

"My room is across the hall," she said. "I'm sure you need some time alone, but if you're not on the patio in 10 minutes...," she gave him a glare before shutting the door.

Heero took this one time in his life to be vain and stood shirtless in front of the full length mirror on the back of the closet door. For the age of 45 he looked in his 30's. His lankiness had turned to compact muscle; his thick hair was shorter but no less tamed; three days subtle itched on his face.

Scars covered his body; few he recognized. The bullet grazes from Duo shooting him on the carrier when they first met; shrapnel scrapes from when he detonated his mobile suit. A small surgical scar on his lower abdomen caught his attention—appendicitis, his recovering memory told him.

Bullet wound on his chest—cross-fire during a Preventer mission

Ragged slices across his left oblique—falling two stories into a rose bush

Clean slice off his right ear—graze from a sword

Heero gingerly lowered himself onto the plush bed, his head swimming in snippets of half-moments.

"This is real," he sighed, "45 and I'm alive."


	2. Chapter 2

Memory Glitch

Summary: Heero awakens to discover he is 45 years old and has recently received a concussion that temporarily causes him to forget the last 30 years. A woman who is not Relena is there to help him remember. 1xR, 2xH, 3xOC, 4xD, 5xS, ZxN

Disclaimer: I am a poor graduate student. I do not own Gundam Wing. Don't sue me.

* * *

Heero ran his palms across the satin bedspread, "Real? yes. True? hn."

He slipped into Sakura's _locked_ guest room. He found her briefcase on the floor beside a redwood desk. It contained several uninteresting legal documents, a notebook written in a code he didn't have time to decipher, and a laptop.

He booted the laptop and hacked past the log-in, using safe-mode as a back door. Perfectly professional, he found a well organized file system containing letters to political delegates, copies of legal documents, and detailed meeting schedules for the next six months. Nothing of her private life was stored on the hard drive. However, the wallpaper for her desktop, a photograph of a Japanese garden, caused a memory to leap forward—his mother with long black hair and stoic black eyes, sitting and reading haikus by Yosa Buson (1).

'Have I tracked down my home colony after all these years?' he wondered.

He shut down the laptop and returned Sakura's belongings to their places. With a final scan of the room, he spotted a worn teddy bear sitting on top of Sakura's luggage. He stood over it, feeling the edges of his sanity wrinkle. There were three reasons this stuffed animal was familiar, but he was only certain of two (2). Resisting the desire to pick it up, he left the room and descended downstairs, feeling even less certain than he had at the hospital.

On the first floor, the sliding doors that connected the elegant drawing room to the outside patio were ajar, letting in a faux breeze and the hearty laughter of a kind voice, which was two octaves too low to be whom Heero assumed.

Walking through the doors, Heero found himself looking up at a man who was once a soft spoken boy. Somewhere in the past, Quatre Winner had gained nine inches and a beard. His platinum hair had aged to a shimmering dirty blond, but his sense of fashion was unchanged. On this evening, he wore a fitted iridescent purple shirt with a black vest; a gold watch chain led from his mid-button to his vest pocket.

"Od—Heero!" the Arabian exclaimed with a smile that put the sun to shame. "When I asked for a visit, this wasn't what I had in mind."

"Hn."

Quatre poured tea into two china cups and handed one to Heero. Heero looked down into the amber liquid, knowing it was Assam tea and knowing he disliked it, but unable to recall ever tasting it. They sat down. Quatre gazed out at the curved view of ascending buildings and artificial atmosphere. The climate control shifted, and the interior of the colony cooled and darkened, attempting to simulate evening on Earth _sans_ sunset.

Heero held the tea on his lap but did not drink. He recalled few awkward moments in his life—the first time he held a bazooka, the day Odin Sr. explained the birds and the bees, the party when Relena and he danced together. This was the worst one yet. He wanted a Gundam, an enemy, a mission, a purpose.

He sensed Sakura standing behind him by her calm, confident mental presence and the scent of her flowery perfume. "Good evening, gentlemen," she said.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Quatre asked her.

"Not the same brand, but it will do," she replied and sat down on the stone bench against the patio railing, sipping from a large blue mug in her left hand and texting on a cell phone in her right hand. "They never understand how to edit my speeches."

"Try having them translate them, horrifying—" Quatre said.

Heero wished he'd stayed in his guest room; 'elitist' small talk was not his forte. Fortunately, neither Quatre nor Sakura attempted to bring Heero into the conversation or steer the conversation towards his memory loss. Quatre was too polite a man to touch sensitive subjects late in the day.

"I must retire," Quatre finally said, standing up and pulling his vest straight, "I promised to spend all of tomorrow with the boys." Placing his hand on Heero's shoulder, he whispered, "Salaam." Heero sighed after the sliding doors were closed.

"What do you think?" asked Sakura.

"He is the same."

"If you say so," Sakura snapped closed her cell phone. "By the way, never touch my computer again."

Heero nodded, "Understood."

For the next hour, they sat in silence thinking with their gazes pointed upwards as if waiting for stars to appear. A young servant came out and collected the tea set, including Heero's cold cup. (The calligraphy stitching on her outfit read 'Lydia'). Sakura held onto her mug. Though he could not smell it, Heero knew it was hot chocolate, her favorite. Similar knowledge rose up into his conscious mind, collecting on the surface like oil in a shaken salad dressing. The forks go in the drawer to the right of the sink, the blue door squeaks in the winter, Jones beach is too crowded in July, and the new shuttles have security holes in their computer systems.

Sakura gracefully stood up and walked into the mansion. "Oyasuminasai," (Good night) she called back.

Back in his guest room, Heero took inventory of his duffel bag: forest green tank, two pairs of blue jeans, one pair of dark dress pants, two dress shirts, two undershirts, three boxers, three pairs of socks, a Preventer uniform, a laptop, a hand gun with holster, and a box of 9mm rounds.

More belongings then he'd had since he was four.

Heero was wary of trying to hack into his own computer (a wrong input would cause the hard drive to wipe itself), but his fingers typed in the password without pause. From his files, he gathered he was a key member of the Preventer Organization, which took responsibility for maintaining the peace on Earth and among the Colonies. There were several recent mission reports, all bland; a list of applicants who passed the physical exam; and a copy of Sakura's schedule with added notes in red.

Sally had informed him he'd received the concussion three days earlier. On that date, September 3rd, was listed a press conference on L4. On the side of this were his notes, "9HG, U, TS2F", which told him he was to take his 9mm hand gun on an unofficial mission that was top secret to his family. Heero's chest tightened at the possibility that he had known of an assassination attempt on Sakura; his unofficial mission would have been her protection, which it appeared he succeeded in. Heero scanned the rest of the schedule, finding the code "TS2F" several times.

Insignificant and brief memories continued to return. However, the most recent memory of Relena he had was still from thirty years ago, yet felt like hours ago. They had gotten on space suits, and he'd said good bye, taking off in Zero and leaving her holding onto the railing. Heero replayed the memory, finding a gap in the sequence. Before closing their helmets, had he kissed her or not?

Tired of remembering and reminiscing, he closed the laptop and went to bed.

(1) This connects to another story of the Sakura Timeline that hasn't been posted yet; in which, Heero does track down his home colony. The important thing to note is that my stories (of the Sakura Timeline) assume that Heero remembers ALL of his past and that he is Odin Lowe Sr.'s son.

(2) A teddy bear he owned when he was young, the teddy bear of the little girl with the dog, and the teddy bear he gifted to Relena after the war. Since Heero can not yet recall the aftermath of the war, he doesn't remember gifting a teddy bear to Relena.


	3. Chapter 3

Memory Glitch

Summary: Heero awakens to discover he is 45 years old and has recently received a concussion that temporarily causes him to forget the last 30 years. A woman who is not Relena is there to help him remember. 1xR, 2xH, 3xOC, 4xD, 5xS, ZxN

Disclaimer: I am a poor graduate student. I do not own Gundam Wing. Don't sue me.

* * *

An empty wooden chair in the middle of an endless darkness. Maple wood, unstained. This was the chair Heero's father had built before he was born. Heero touched it. 'I'm dreaming', he blandly thought (dreams of his childhood were not uncommon). He sat in the chair and felt something soft underneath him. He pulled out a teddy bear with a blue ribbon around its neck. This was not his teddy, it was new and lacked the name 'ODIN' on its left foot. This teddy was a present to—

He was no longer in the chair, but standing two feet away, 15 years old, wearing jeans and a forest green tank. The teddy bear was replaced with a 9mm hand gun. The chair was empty. Then, a man with mechanical eyes and a three-clawed metal hand sat, grinning.

"She has potential," he said.

"Who?" Heero asked

"That amazing female offspring of yours, the _fair_ one. I'd be delighted to take her into training."

"Sakura—" Heero whispered.

"Whatever she calls herself. We mustn't let her go to waste. She is capable of surpassing even your abilities." The man clinked his three claws together. The man was not in the chair, but standing besides Heero. The chair was empty, then gone. In its place stood a seven year old girl with glittering gold hair and sparkling blue eyes, wearing a school uniform.

"Sakura, why are you sad?" Heero asked her.

"You didn't come."

Heero knelt before the young girl. He wore a Preventer uniform; he wasn't 15, but he wasn't 45. "I had a mission."

"You have too many of them," she placed her hand above his beating heart.

"Come, come," shouted the man from behind. "Let's take her to the facilities. Peace is ephemeral. Gundams and their pilots may be needed again."

Heero ignored him. The Gundams were destroyed, such talk was useless. He put his hand on top of his daughter's and whispered, "I will protect you." Her eyes doubted him. A gun shot rang in his ears; a warm wetness trickled onto his fingers, dripping from Sakura's left shoulder.

And she was gone. The old man was sitting in the wooden chair, manically grinning as if he'd won a definitive argument. The darkness was deafening. Heero's mouth opened and shouted, "No one should live life like I did. Innocence—"

The man in the chair laughed, "You think she's innocent! You think she's untainted. You doom any child of yours to the least innocent existence possible."

An eighteen year old girl walked out of the darkness dressed in a Preventer uniform, a handgun strapped to each thigh. "Maybe he's right," she said.

"Sakura!" Heero shouted hoarsely as if this was the end of a long argument. (He remembered slamming a file onto a desk where Une sat with her hands clasped tightly.)

Sakura turned to the man in the chair, "Good evening, Dr. J." The man nodded. Pink petals from cherry blossoms began to fall, blowing in the direction Sakura faced. Music started, volume rising, the classical notes of a waltz, growing more chaotic with each heartbeat. Sakura pointed a gun at the man—bang! The man vanished and the bullet drew blood from the air.

"The music has stopped," she said, lowering her gun. With dull blue eyes she looked at Heero. "I regret nothing. Look behind you."

Heero turned on his heels and was faced with himself. Not himself. It was a girl with his nose, mouth, and cheeks, with long curly brown hair. She was a panther slinking out from the dark underbrush, ready to pounce. By thoughts alone she propelled him backwards. Flat on his back in a king size bed.

Heero breathed in and out. I'm awake.

XXXXX

Normally, he needed four hours of uninterrupted sleep to properly function, but his older body or the nightmare required an additional 40 minutes. After a jog around the yard and a shower, Heero sat down in the drawing room at 7:58am. The young servant, Lydia, kindly brought him a cup of English Breakfast tea and a toasted cheese Danish.

"What is this?"

"Your favorite, sir," said Lydia. "Master Quatre insists that we anticipate the needs and wants of his guests." She bowed and left. He eyed his breakfast. The scent of the danish made his mouth salivate. Sipping the tea and nibbling the Danish, he mused, 'So, this is what peace tastes like'.

The awkwardness from the previous night lingered in his gut, and the dream had added doubt. Although his mind had come to terms with the validity of the situation, his heart sensed something amiss. To distract himself, he pawed through magazines that were arranged in a fan pattern on the coffee table.

The 'Time' headline caught his eye: 'Sibling Rivalry: Gap Between the Peacecraft Daughter's Ideologies'. The front cover was of two women on either side of a canyon. One was Sakura in her finest suit, arms crossed, eyes closed in thought; the other was a younger woman with long curly dark hair, wearing a white karate gi and staring at the reader with Heero's distinctive death glare—the panther from his dream. A second daughter! He opened to the article and scanned for a name. Mary Elizabeth Lowe. Heero remembered Mary, the puppy of a little girl he had accidentally killed in a botched mission when he was fourteen.

A subtitle of a gossip magazine peeked out from behind a music magazine: 'Vice Foreign Minister with a Rock Star! (page 25)'. Adjacent to the pictures of Quatre on a beach grabbing Dorothy's ass, there was also an image of a young man dressed in leather with a long black braid draped over his shoulder, strumming an electric guitar. Heero flipped to page 25. The images were blurry and unfocused, each claiming the blond blob was Sakura and the dark blob was the rock star from the cover, Max Maxwell. Only one photograph was convincing: a picture taken while Max was on tour with a figure peering out from backstage. The hair was gold; the suit the same as what Sakura wore yesterday.

Heero sensed a migraine and pushed the magazines to the other side of the table.

High pitched laughter and hurried footsteps echoed from down the hall, growing louder. Dias and Abraham skipped into the drawing room, haphazardly carrying a large sheet of construction paper between them.

"Un'ca Odin," said the older, Abraham, "we want to help you remember-"

"-so we made you this di-o-gram," finished Dias. They flipped it over revealing a crayon drawn family tree of all five Gundam pilots.

Of course, Sakura and Mary branched off from Relena and _Odin_. Wufei and Sally had two children, Nataku and Yifaun. The rock star, Max, was Duo and Hilde's only child. Trowa had a son named Bryon. And two additional names descended from the Winner branch, Rashim and Sahara.

"They are not here," explained Dias. "Because they are old, they work a lot."

"Rashim is on Earth," said Abraham.

Some of the names on the diagram were accompanied by pictures. Wufei was a stick figure with a long sectioned pony tail and a waist length beard, swinging a larger-than-life katana. Trowa wore a top hat and a bright red blazer. Max Maxwell strummed a guitar, sporting a black braid longer than his body.

A limo horn honked outside. Dias and Abraham placed the diagram on the table.

"We have to go. We're already late," said Abraham. Dias moved towards Heero opening his arms for a hug, but Abraham grabbed his younger brother by the collar and shook his head. Dias frowned and waved good bye, then sprinted with his brother through the foyer to the entrance, where a servant held the door open.

Heero stared at the diagram and raised his left eyebrow.


	4. Chapter 4

Memory Glitch

Summary: Heero awakens to discover he is 45 years old and has recently received a concussion that temporarily causes him to forget the last 30 years. A woman who is not Relena is there to help him remember. 1xR, 2xH, 3xOC, 4xD, 5xS, ZxN

Disclaimer: I am a poor graduate student. I do not own Gundam Wing. Don't sue me.

* * *

The Winner Mansion was not located in the most affluent section of L4. The late Mr. Winner had insisted on living near the people he employed. And in this middle class neighborhood, he'd built a large park (10 sq. acres), which Dorothy Winner now oversaw with great pride.

"You did not tell me you had a sister," Heero said as Sakura and he walked side by side down a brick path across a hilled and wooded area of the park. Open fields, some for specific sports, stretched out below them.

Sakura shrugged. "It was not of immediate importance. You'll remember things soon enough."

Heero had already regained a wealth of feelings and facts pertaining too Mary since he had glanced the article earlier. However, there was a lack of memories _with_ Mary. The more he scoured his mind, the more he suspected such memories simply had never existed.

"How old is she?" he finally asked.

"Just turned 16. She's with Relena down on Earth." She had yet to refer to Relena as Mom or Heero as Dad. Heero himself, however, had always called his own father Odin or Sir.

People crossed their path. All seemed to recognize Sakura, bowing to show their respect or glaring to express their contempt. An old woman with a cherry wood cane stopped to shake Sakura's hand. No paparazzi popped out from within the bushes or behind the trees. No light glinted off telephoto lenses in the distance.

"You're security is very lax."

"I refuse to be in a bubble," Sakura said. "I am not incapable of defending myself." Heero felt this had been repeated to him several times before and in less friendly of a tone. "However," she sighed. "You're head injury was caused by you protecting me. Relena and I have tried to discourage you, but we know, whenever there is a threat, you are in the shadows watching over us." Heero touched the bandage on his forehead.

They walked onto a stone bridge spanning a small brook that meandered between two soccer fields and paused to admire the view.

"I trained you?" he asked.

"Yes, but Mary took to training better than I. Unfortunately, she's nursed quite a fiery personality. I suppose that is why Wufei is so taken with her."

Mary, Heero knew as a fact, did not live with them. "Wufei takes care of her."

Sakura nodded. "She's one of his pupils. One of the best."

A memory of a frowning face framed by brown hair stabbed a thorn into Heero's chest. "Mary doesn't like me?"

"She admits she doesn't feel a connection, but I don't think she dislikes you, she "

They heard the muffled, high-pitch sound of a gun shooting with a silencer. In a fraction of a second, Sakura had moved several centimeters to the left. The bullet grazed the side of her cardigan, tearing only fabric.

Sakura leaped over the short wall of the bridge, dropping twenty feet to the brook below. She landed like a feline beside her young, dark-haired assassin, who was hidden in a large forsythia bush, and grabbed the barrel of his sniper rifle, aiming his next shot into the trunk of a tree a few feet behind her.

"I'd suggest you surrender," said Heero, appearing beside Sakura.

The young assassin's shaking hands released the trigger and hilt. He then chomped down on his teeth with a sickening crack and fell with dead weight at Sakura's feet.

"Poison capsule," Heero noted.

"He is not the first," Sakura said. Staring at the body with pity, she leaned down and closed the young man's eyelids. "Speak of peace and everyone is excited and supportive. Speak of complete disarmament and suddenly they're silent. Each afraid they'll be defenseless against the other's attack."

"Then nothing has changed."

"One cannot easily erase fear from the human mind," Sakura replied. She turned her head towards the sirens of a Preventer vehicle and ambulance coming towards them.

"Hn?"

"I have a panic button on my cell," said Sakura.

XXXXX

Heero and Sakura entered the foyer of Quatre's mansion. The servant Lydia made a kind bow and a curious glance at the rip in Sakura's cardigan.

"Miss Lowe," Lydia whispered. "Max and Mr. Maxwell have been patiently awaiting for you to return. They arrived here about an hour ago. Could you pleas-"

Duo's high-pitched babbling echoed out of the right hand hallway. Sakura pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned, then marched briskly to the kitchen. Heero followed, observing how her muscles tensed and her hands balled into fists. They turned the corner into a large professional kitchen.

Duo sat on the floor, swinging a half empty champagne bottle. Heero wasn't surprised; his mind told him this was disturbingly common. A tall young man with a black braid grabbed for the neck of the champagne bottle and missed as Duo protectively hugged it.

"Give it to me," the young man demanded in a rumbling baritone that betrayed his boyish face.

"No. Mine! Go away, Max." Duo stuck out his tongue and moved to stand, but tripped on air and fell back down, releasing hold of the bottle as his head knocked into a cabinet door. Max caught the bottle in mid-air, then slammed it into the nearby sink basin; it shattered on impact.

"Ow, ow, ow," Duo whined, rubbing the back of his head.

"DUO MAXWELL!" Sakura suddenly shouted, stomping her foot down. Duo winced, covered his ears, and rolled his eyes in disinterest. Memories like short films overlapped in Heero's mind Sakura at various ages, demanding that Uncle Duo behave.

"I'm sorry, Sakura," Max said, turning to face her. "He heard about hi, Mr. Lowe."

"Max," Heero growled not at Max himself, but at the part of Max that was Duo. At some lost point in history, Heero and Duo's friendship had degraded into awkwardness and mild contempt between strangers; Duo often covered it up with badly timed humor.

"Oh, foo," Duo cried. "Did you regain your noddles already? I wanted to have fun with ya!" Duo used the counter to balance himself as he stood up. In place of his infamous braid was a stout, two-inch ponytail. Duo notched his elbow around Heero's neck, leaning his weight onto the short Japanese man. "How's that memory doing? Remember that time Sakura and Max switched clothes! In the van! or when Mary bested you with the foil or or or Yes! when you caught Rashim and Sak-clo-et-" Heero covered Duo's mouth firmly with his hand.

"He's trying to get a rise out of you," explained Max, blushing. "Just ignore him."

Duo's face turned a pale green. Heero promptly released him. Duo fell to his knees, wrapped his arms around his stomach, and moaned.

Ten minutes later, Duo was snoozing on the couch in the drawing room with a metal bowl on floor beside him. Max and Sakura sat on the patio, neither talking or looking at one another. Sensing a lack of key information to assess the situation and feeling his surroundings had become overcrowded, Heero spent the rest of the day in his guest room, sifting through files on his laptop, only interrupted by Dias and Abraham poking their heads in to say goodnight.


	5. Chapter 5

Memory Glitch

Summary: Heero awakens to discover he is 45 years old and has recently received a concussion that temporarily causes him to forget the last 30 years. A woman who is not Relena is there to help him remember. 1xR, 2xH, 3xOC, 4xD, 5xS, ZxN

Disclaimer: I am a poor graduate student. I do not own Gundam Wing. Don't sue me.

* * *

Sleep was impossible. Every time he closed his eyes, half-memories full of imperfect images, sounds, and smells, rushed in to fill his thoughts. The guest room felt stuffy with the past; he needed fresh air. With well practiced stealth, Heero left his room. The clock in the hall read 2:00 am.

Somber music echoed from the first floor. Heero, finding it soothing to his jumbled mind, followed it to the drawing room. He paused in the entranceway. Max sat at Quatre's shiny, black Steinway grand piano, playing with his eyes closed; his hair freely flowing down his back in gentle waves. A half-full wine glass stood on the coffee table beside a copy of George Orwell's _1984._

Max hit a wrong note, and Heero knew such musical mishaps were unusual. He also knew, without knowing how, that Max was afraid of lightning storms, bats, and his father finding a cabinet full of alcohol. He knew that Max was two years older than Sakura, that Sakura and Max were best friends, that (until Max's rise into stardom) the Maxwells financially squeeked by, rarely able to afford the shuttle trips between the colonies or Earth and never accepting hand outs. He knew the piece being played was written for Hilde; he had heard it at the funeral.

Having recollected enough to sustain a conversation with Max, Heero crossed the room and passed through the sliding doors to the patio.

Max had sensed the presence of Mr. Lowe, but had held in a flinch and resolved to finish the piece. After playing the last note, he sat in non-thought, admiring the softness of the ivory keys. Shoving doubt out of the way, he grabbed his glass of red wine from the coffee table and walked onto the patio.

Heero stood at the railing, arms crossed. "When was the first time you kissed her?"

Max dribbled his drink down the front of his white dress shirt. "Oh, damn it." He grabbed a napkin from the patio table and began to dab. Heero turned and narrowed his eyes.

"How did you know?" asked Max.

"I didn't," said Heero. "You just told me."

"That's terribly cliché, especially for you."

Heero didn't respond. He was busy searching through his mind for information that would help him make sense of this 'situation'. All he could determine, however, was that he had _not _suspected Max and Sakura's relationship before the previous day. Fatherly protectiveness briefly surged through him, but his mind assuaged this with the supposition that Max was more Hilde than Duo in personality, physical appearances aside.

A blurry memory of Max playing a springy melody on a flute at a birthday party faded in and out of Heero's mind. The rest of Max's music he recalled, besides the _Ode to Hilde_, were rock songs that attacked current political, social, and economic policies. After a long pause, Heero said, "Interesting music."

"Most of my songs are based on the classics." Max looked down at his shirt. "This is going to stain."

Heero remembered his mother's improvised singing of Haikus. "Could you play some more?"

Max blinked his deep violet eyes. "Seriously? Sure."

XXXX

Heero sat on the couch, leaning back with his feet propped up the coffee table and his eyes closed. Max finished "Flight of the Bumblebee" and began a simple repetitive melody, taking his foot away from the peddles.

"Your amnesia," he started, testing the waters and continued when Mr. Lowe did not grunt. "What is the last thing you remember? I mean, where does, did, the amnesia start?"

"Destroying Libra."

"Libra? Interesting," Max mused. Heero opened one eye and death-glared at him to explain. Max cleared his throat. "You're mind chose to forget everything that happened after the defining moment, the beginning of peace well, minus the Christmas Eve Wars, and the small rebellion on L4...and the ESUN conspiracy. My point a perfect soldier has no place during peace." His pinky hit F-sharp instead of F. "That came out wrong."

Heero didn't change his position. "Continue."

Max took in a deep breath. "During the war you were a soldier, some would say terrorist. After the war you became a person, a civilian a preventer agent as well. You gained new titles husband, father, friend. And you gained new 'comrades' wife, daughters, friends, nephew."

"Attachments."

"Yes," said Max. "Liabilities. Now, your own life (and the possible loss of it) affects others. And the lives of others affects you. You lost you memories protecting one of these liabilities dear god, the energy you must expend worrying! I can see why you'd want to return to the singular life of a soldier."

Max stopped the repetitive melody and moved into improvising a song to release his nervousness. Meanwhile, Heero acknowledged to himself Max's analysis, finding it explained the missing moment with Relena: back then, if he kissed her, she would become an attachment; if he did not, she could remain an old target.

"_You _think too much," he finally said.

"I'm a closet genius," replied Max nonchalantly. "Don't tell my fans."

"Then your image is a sham?"

"Well, I ride motorcycles Hey! We're not turning the psych evaluation on me."

Heero shrugged without shrugging. "What about on Duo?"

Max stopped playing and turned to face Heero straight on. "How much have you remembered?"

Heero crossed his arms and stared at the floor. "Hmmmm."

"That much, huh." Max sighed. "I think he lost his life's purpose after the war. He didn't like being a Preventer agent, his salvage company never picked up,"

"His son became a rock star," Heero added.

"—then mom...well, she was the last thread holding him to the ground. When he cut off his braid, I should've known something was—" Max paused and rubbed the back of his head. His eyes glossed over. "Mr. Lowe, you're a father, another guy, I know this is a bad time but sometimes...I feel like I'm a bad son."

Heero's muscles slackened from their normal half-tensed state. Memories of his father, Odin Lowe Sr., crept into the foreground of his mind; using them as a guide, he got up from the couch and sat down on the piano bench next to Max.


	6. Chapter 6

Memory Glitch

Summary: Heero awakens to discover he is 45 years old and has recently received a concussion that temporarily causes him to forget the last 30 years. A woman who is not Relena is there to help him remember. 1xR, 2xH, 3xOC, 4xD, 5xS, ZxN

Disclaimer: I am a poor graduate student. I do not own Gundam Wing. Don't sue me.

* * *

At 7:00 am, Sakura awoke, showered, and dressed (ignoring the loud snores of Mr. Maxwell in the adjacent guest room), then descended the stairs, chasing the scent of Lydia's freshly baked breakfast pastries and the sound of beautiful music. Step by step, she submerged herself into Frederic Chopin's Sonate No. 2, Allegro Maestroto, which poured passionately out of the drawing room and echoed throughout the foyer.

Sakura paused in the doorway. Heero sat on the couch with his eyes closed; Max played the piano. She raised her left eyebrow, but dared not interrupt. Questions were for after breakfast. Quietly, she sat down in a chair between the couch and the piano. Heero opened his eyes and gave her a good morning look. Lydia and a male servant Jaden arrived from the kitchen and set out a platter of cheese and raspberry danishes, a steaming pot of tea, and a pitcher of cranberry juice.

"Thank you," said Sakura. The two servants respectfully left. Sakura began to pour herself juice. As the deep red liquid splashed into the glass, a flash back of a small, thin arm dripping with blood obliterated Heero's current thoughts. He grabbed Sakura's left wrist suddenly and lifted her sleeve up to her shoulder to reveal a ragged and long scar across her upper arm. The music stopped.

"This is my fault," said Heero.

"It is no one's fault," Sakura said, giving a warning glare to Max not to object. Max looked away.

The sound of the front doors slamming shut startled them. They all turned towards the heavy tapping of heels rushing across marble. Relena, dark gold hair pulled into a loose bun, flew across the drawing room to Heero, taking the man's unshaven face between her palms and pressing her soft lips into his. Sakura was worried and amused by the wide-eyed and frantic expression Heero's face was capable of. Max had fallen off the piano stool, laughing with tears.

Kissing Relena did not feel strange to Heero. It felt like a continuation of when Relena and he were getting into space suits. At first, it felt like a first kiss, then increasing familiar. Walls in his mind crumbled. The moments between Libra's destruction and the hospital, the gaps between the snippets of life he'd recalled in the past three days were filled to over flowing.

Duo and Hilde's outdoor wedding getting poured on; Millardo's son, refusing to go to bed without a story; Sakura's blowing out her 5th birthday cake with a leaf blower from the gardeners shed; Sakura and Mary flying kites on a field in France; two year old Mary biting Wufei's hand when he refused her a cookie; Sakura in a Preventer uniform; Mary at eight years old, kneeling before Wufei, dedicating herself to martial arts; Sakura at her sweet sixteen party in a blue dress; Nat and Max fighting in the foyer of the Winner Mansion; Rashim standing in front of his father, with Sakura by his side for moral support; a five year old Sakura...

a five year old Sakura, unconscious, blood pouring from her arm and chest, where she had accidentally shot herself with Heero's gun.

It has been the last thought in Heero's mind when he had leaped down from the catwalk above the stage, shoved Sakura away from the podium, and been grazed by a bullet meant to assassinate his daughter.

**Epilogue:**

Duo would forever be upset that he slept through Odin's brief amnesia and was never able to mess with his mind. Odin, on the other hand, would always be grateful that Duo passed out in the kitchen and that Max happened to choose that night to have insomnia.

A nagging gap still existed in Odin's memory, had he kissed Relena before closing their helmets? Relena wasn't telling.

**Alternate Epilogue:**

A splitting pain arced across his forehead. Heero opened his eyes, unable to remember closing them. A dashboard of brightly lit meters and displays blinked back at him. His sweaty hands gripped controls; his body moved against a tight harness. Heero blinked at the sight of Zero's cockpit and at the monitor display of Libra still breaking apart by the force of his buster rifle. Had it been a dream, a hallucination, a vision? Already, the details were fading from his mind. The radio was cracking with the voices of the other Gundam pilots. Victory was achieved. The future started now.


End file.
